Tuesday, July 2, 2013

World of Tanks Offers 'Daily Doubles'

Yesterday saw the introduction of Missions on the NA World of Tanks server. Or is it the United States of America server now? I get confused when they disregard other North American nations’ major holidays (July 1st is Canada Day, akin to the US 4th of July holiday for those not in the know and they did absolutely nothing...not even a mention of it like last year). My bitterness aside, WoT has indeed added missions/tasks with completion rewards that can see you get extra credits and experience. Never mind the physics. Never mind the arty ‘nerf’. Never mind, well, anything. This is the single greatest thing they have ever done. No really, it is.

If you are a solo pubber like myself you may have often played games where your team has let you down (I like to use the term ‘shit the bed’). Two, three, four+ kills, 3500 damage, 5000 spotting damage, last man left alive…. I’ve had losing games like this too many times to count in my 10k+ battles and I am so very sick of seeing the lamest, do-nothing-ist ass-hat on the ‘winning’ team get more experience and credits than me. I realize it’s a ‘team’ game, but we all know a couple good players can, and do, carry a whole pile of sub-par players. I have long been a proponent of rewards based on performance, instead of punishment based on team stupidity when it comes to credits and experience.

To illustrate my point, I want you to take a look at the picture below.

I thought long and hard about using this particular picture but I think it illustrates my example quite nicely. Some time ago I had a message here on my blog (which I didn’t publish) that led to a discussion with a player who uses a bot program. He sent me some screen shots, and a few replays, and was wondering if he could guest-post a few articles about botting in the game. I’m still debating that one, but for now I will use this picture (heavily vetted) to make my point. The Type 59 was the bot. Note that he got 0 damage, and still managed to best most of the other team in experience. I mean, come on, look at those two top players. They played their guts out and a bot beats them in experience? That’s dreadful. I watched the replay of that one, and the experience is so high because the bot ended up with 2000+ in spotting damage (and 40k in credits as it drove to the middle of the field and then stopped and fired until it was dead). That, quite fankly, is bullshit. What a slap in the face for the other team but it does highlight the problem with punishing the 'losers' for not having good teammates.

This is why I say adding performance based rewards is the greatest thing they could have ever done. If rewards players, like myself, who often play well but end up losing. I am absolutely thrilled. There might be those who argue it will cause players to ‘act for themselves’ or ‘kill steal’ but you know what? I don’t care. I’m sick of trying to get people to help me cover the flanks while they lemming off to their early deaths. I’m sick of teams all rushing to one side to camp while the other side gets face-rolled, etc, etc. There may be a few cases where someone costs the team a game or two chasing a reward, but I’d rather have that than the other.

Last night I was excited to try it out, and below are the results. Booya! That’s what I have to say. I’m particularly happy with the Type 59 game (my first of the day) because we were getting decimated in town while myself and a couple others wisely flanked in the field. We were on the cap and seconds away from winning when the enemy team arrived to re-set. At this point I had done all I could do. I played a great game and knew that we were going to lose (only three of us left, sitting on a re-set cap with enemies shooting at us AND capping our base) so I left the cap with 150hp left to chase my third kill. I’m sure glad I did.

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That's one defeat I can easily live with.

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I also did well in my B2, but I expected that. It’s a good tank for farming this type of mission because you usually get a good number of kills and the extra 20k in winnings is nice. I was also one kill away from getting this in both my Object 704, and my Hellcat. I only played nine games last night and while I did manage to win seven of them, I also got two of the three-kill missions completed.

The B2...kill-mission farmer.

All in all the new mission-rewards system gets a huge thumbs up for me. My desire to play, of late, is really waning. The missions give me something to focus on, especially in the face of loss after loss. I would like to see the permanent introduction of rewards for top damage in every game but for now, this will do nicely.